Friday, February 17, 2012

Miscellaneous 116

1) When Peter Orszag stepped down as President Obama's Director of the Office of Management and Budget, that was a pretty major loss, I think. The dude quite literally was one of the few straight shooters in all of D.C. and I really despair whenever I see people like that cash it in.............2) Mr. Orszag's input was especially valuable during the lengthy cap and trade debate. While Democrats in Congress wanted to give away (mostly to corporations, mind you) 85% of the emission permits for 2012 and only auction away the remaining 15%, Mr. Orszag countered with this little piece straight medicine, "If you didn't auction the permits, it would represent the largest corporate welfare program that has ever been enacted in the history of the United States. All of the evidence suggests that what would occur is that corporate profits would increase by approximately the value of the permits." Unfortunately, Mr.s Waxman and Markey didn't listen to Orszag and decided to lard the bill (which is currently stalled) up anyway.............3) For those of you who think that what Jeremy Lin has been doing the past couple weeks is somehow a miracle, think again. I just heard a couple of stats from ESPN (their science guy, specifically) and the fellow has in fact supreme talent. The first one has to do with quickness; the fact that he can go from 0 to 10 miles per hour in less than a second. The second one has do with release time on his shot; the fact that he can get off his shot in .6 seconds (faster even than all-time three-point shooter, Ray Allen). If the fellow can somehow cut down on his turnovers, he just might end up being a legitimate star after all.............4) I've never seen a bunch that could lose the upper-hand the way that these Republicans can. President Obama clearly overstepped his mandate with this whole thing about forcing religious organizations to provide birth control. Advantage Republicans, right? But then when he made the compromise, exercised damage control, etc., that clearly should have been the end of it. The Republicans should have simply declared their victory and mosied on. But they didn't. Nope. They malingered and turned it into some troglodytic birth-control issue. And NOW...THEY look like the unreasonable ones. Absolutely unbelievable, those people.

8 comments:

Jerry Critter said...

The republicans once again reinforce John McCain's comment,

"We're dumb, but we're not stupid."

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

Unfortunately, sometimes they're both; that whole Schiavo situation, for instance.......As for Mr. McCain, it's good to see that the "old McCain" can sometimes find his way back.

Ema Nymton said...

.

"I've never seen a bunch that could lose the upper-hand the way that these Republicans can. President Obama clearly overstepped his mandate with this whole thing about forcing religious organizations to provide birth control."

Really? Love to get into a poker game with you if you think the whole brouhaha was anything more than a political misstep by the RepublicanT Party in Washington DC. Talk about misreading the cards; 'overstepping mandate'?

Religious affiliated corporate entities are just that, corporate entities, working within the boundaries of USA and must meet the rules of doing business like every other corporate entity.

The fact that the RepublicanT Party PRETENDED to be offended over this is too comical. But hey, it allowed the RepublicanT Party to play their chumps for a few bits of head-lines on Fox. Yea.

The RepublicanT Party was bluffing, got called, and had to fold their losing hand. Think about this; these are the characters who hope to take on Mr Obama for the presidency in November.

Do you get a sinking feeling that you are backing serious LOSERS?!?

Ema Nymton
~@:o?
.

dmarks said...

Ema said: "Do you get a sinking feeling that you are backing serious LOSERS?!?"

Will has made clear that he is backing Obama this time. I guess you are right, he is a serious loser (considering his massive increase of unemployment and the debt)

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

dmarks, Ema must think that Mr. Biden is a serious loser, too. This, in that he was one of the people in the administration who advised Mr. Obama AGAINST this move (the initial decision, I'm saying - as did liberal commentator Mark Shields).

Dervish Sanders said...

Unemployment has been going down, dmarks. Yes, the debt is up, but that's thanks to the bush recession and the Republican's refusal to raise taxes.

I'm with Emma on the contraception issue. Obama didn't "overstep his mandate".

Jerry Critter said...

What is this "mandate" of which we speak?

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

He must have felt that he overstepped it or he wouldnt have corrected it (correctly so, in my opinion).